By Mary O’KEEFE

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (the Lab) is composed of people from a variety of backgrounds that encompass an even wider variety of skills. They all work together to explore space as well as our home planet. Their mission is never-ending in moving society forward in scientific exploration, but what is often forgotten is that JPL is an authentic community.

Recently the JPL community created a gift for its new lab director Dr. Laurie Leshin. What may have started as a quilt became so much more with every single stitch.

Julia France and Katie Siegel, both JPL employees, wanted to give Dr. Leshin, the first female leader of the lab, a welcome to JPL gift.

“We thought wouldn’t it be cool to make her a present with a personal touch,” France said.

Siegel added it was France who came up with the idea of making a quilt. They knew of many people at JPL who knitted, cross-stitched, crocheted and sewed. They reached out to the Lab thinking they would get about 20 – maybe 30 – people involved.

“I was very surprised at the volunteer effort,” Siegel said of the response. “We got over 150 people involved in the project.”

Some were experienced crafters while others were first-timers.

“We have experienced [crafters] who opened up their homes to provide lessons,” France added.

The quilt ended up having 144 eight-inch squares, each having some type of personal meaning to the quilter, Dr. Leshin or the Lab.

The JPL team brought the quilt to Quilt ’n’ Things in La Crescenta where owner Lana Norton and her husband Paul were more than willing to help finalize assembly. Quilt ’n’ Things has a long arm quilting machine that was up for the task. The long arm machine loads the top, batting and back onto a metal frame and then sews the layers together.

“My dad worked at JPL,” Paul said. This made the project even more special; he said he felt his dad was part of the process.

“It took Paul three full days of quilting,” Lana said of the time it took to pull together the quilt.

The result was an amazing pieced quilt that had squares of rockets, landers, planets, animals and images of people – including one of Dr. Leshin’s mother. France said Leshin had talked about her mother taking her to meetings of the National Organization of Women, and how she was inspired.

“She spoke about how we all stand on the shoulders of giants,” France said. “We coded that [saying] into the quilt.”

Yes, it may be a quilting group but they are still JPLers, so there is Morse code around the quilt’s border and on some of the squares and the backing is based on the divisions on Lab. 

“The back was based on the sizes of [departments], what people do for their jobs,” Siegel explained.

Many “Easter eggs” (hidden messages) were placed on the quilt and puzzles that people on Lab are having fun solving.

Both France and Siegel said they were surprised how emotional this project became.

“The last two years have been so uncertain,” Siegel said. Like most businesses, employees of JPL have been working from home for the last two years.

Leshin is the first female director in JPL history and that has been emotional for many on Lab.

“It felt awesome,” Siegel said when she heard of Leshin’s appointment. “It felt like a validating moment.”

“We are so excited she is [here],” France added.

Leshin has a legacy of supporting women and under-represented people. She believes in inclusivity, diversity and equity in the workplace, Siegel said.

“She puts her money where her mouth is,” she added.

After the presentation of the sizable quilt (it’s 11 feet by 6 feet), Leshin spent time with its creators including taking selfies next to the square they had created.

“We wrote some words about how historic her appointment was as the first woman director,” Siegel said of the presentation. “We [explained] how we worked together as a team and pointed out squares that were touching and meaningful.”

She added that by watching Leshin’s town hall meetings she knew how enthusiastic the new director was but the quilt presentation left Leshin speechless.

The project, which took over 500 hours to complete, was so successful and created such a feeling of camaraderie that many who had participated came up to France and asked about the next project.

“I know there is a desire within the community of crafters to do a new project,” she said.

They will take some time off, then start planning the next community project for the Lab.